Don Smolyn remembers the days of coaching his Lenape Valley football team in the heat during preseason camp.

"We worked them all day," joked Smolyn, who is entering his 37th season as the Patriots' head coach. "We didn't shut off and go home until it was nearly dark."

Those days of working athletes on the field all day during sweltering temperatures are gone due to the rise of heat-related deaths in the country, and the NJSIAA has now taken another step forward to prevent these incidents from happening.

The NJSIAA is requiring all coaches to take the National Federation of State High School Associations' online course on minimizing the risk of heat-related injuries.

The course, called "A Guide to Heat Acclimatization and Heat Illness Prevention," teaches coaches how to identify and deal with heat-related illnesses — such as heat cramps, heat exhaustion and exertional heat stroke — their players may possibly have when they are participating in preseason practices, which officially started on Wednesday.

"It's important to educate the coaches about this stuff," Smolyn said. "If we lose one child, that's one too many. We got to do everything in our power to make the games safe. Parents entrust their children to us, so you got to do whatever it takes."

The NJSIAA mandated this policy after only recommending coaches to educate themselves on heat-related issues last year while following its 14-day heat-acclimatization period, which it adopted from the National Athletic Trainers Association. The period is the "initial 14 consecutive days of preseason practice" and its purpose is to "enhance exercise heat tolerance" while doing it safely and effectively, according to the NATA guidelines.

The first five days feature no live contact so athletes can put in an hour of training and conditioning per day to prepare for single- or double-session practices. Then from day six to 14, athletes can go full-contact with all protective equipment.

During the remaining nine days, individual practices can't exceed three hours in length and athletes can only partake in five total hours of practice per day if there are two sessions. But with 18 athletes having died from heat-related incidents from 2005-09, up from 11 from 2000-04 according to the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury, it's all about safety.

"I've always felt we try to do what the state wanted us to do," Smolyn said. "They got people that are experts. I know there are a lot of people who are unhappy with it. But anything we can do to make the games favor, we should do."

Coaches in other sports such as Sparta boys soccer coach Andrew Lowery believe there shouldn't be a mandatory course because coaches should use their common sense.

"It's all kind of knee-jerk (reactions)," Lowery, who had his Spartans practice for an hour on Wednesday morning, said of the rule. "Yes, if it was 100 degrees out, we should not have the kids on the field for five hours killing themselves. But what coach in their right mind would do that?

"I've never done that and I know a lot of people who I work with in my school and in the county who would never be so stupid."

Lowery, heading into his 21st season at Sparta, also says the course doesn't exactly "apply" to all coaches and the heat-acclimatization period takes athletes' time away from practicing and meeting off-the-field obligations. But, he knows he and the Spartans need to follow it.

"We have to acclimate to the heat," Lowery said. "We have to get used to it."